Creative Nonfiction #5: Penny Lane on Confessions of a Good Samaritan and making a self-portrait

Seventh Row Podcast

In the fifth and final episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season, Alex Heeney talks to Penny Lane about her experimentations with documentary form in Confessions of a Good Samaritan. The film is a trip inside Penny’s brain as she goes through the stressful process of anonymously donating her kidney and investigates why kidney donations are necessary. Lane weaves almost all of the techniques from her previous films (and a few more!) into Confessions of a Good Samaritan, offering a thoughtful, educational, and funny look at the complicated feelings that come with doing good in the world at some personal expense.

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You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes.

Useful links

• Visit the Creative Nonfiction Podcast homepage
• Discover all of our resources on the films of Joachim Trier
• Pre-order Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions

More on creative nonfiction

Download a FREE excerpt from Subjective Realities here.

Get your copy of the ebook Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film here.

Get your copy of the ebook In their own words: Documentary Masters vol. 1

Listen to the podcast on the ebook Subjective realities: The art of creative nonfiction film

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Related Episodes

Members Only Episodes

• Ep. 12: Penny Lane on Hail Satan? (Members' Exclusive): Penny Lane discusses her 2019 film Hail Satan
• Ep. 40: Dead Mothers (Members' Exclusive): We discuss Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs, a film that expertly gets inside the head of its thoughtful characters. We also compare it to Mouthpiece and Stories We Tell.
• Ep. 122: Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World (Free): Joachim Trier's breakout hit is also a film that is very good at getting us inside the protagonist's mind amidst an existential crisis.

Free Episodes

• Ep. 105: Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film: We discuss the making of the ebook Subjective Realities and what you can expect from the book
• Ep. 99: Creative Nonfiction with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen
• Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative Nonfiction

Credits

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Email us at contact seventh row com.

This episode was edited, produced, and recorded by Alex Heeney.